The Phone Call
by PrimeWoman
Summary: 'Look, um, Harry, there's not much time.'   What would you say in your last phone call? A Harry/Ruth angst ridden, simply written story from a first time fanfic writer.  Chapter 1 can be stand alone for pure angst  I don't own anything important.
1. Chapter 1

Harry's phone was ringing. He put her on speaker.

'Ruth, finally. I've got Beth, Dmitri and Lucas in the hospital now, but they can't find Malorie or locate the bomb-'

'Harry. Malorie's here. She's here.' Harry's heart seemed to stop. Ruth's voice was smaller than he'd ever heard it; it wasn't the high speed mumble she gave when bursting into his office or even the soft, tender voice she'd used on those savoured occasions. It was small and something else.

'What is she doing? Where are you Ruth?' Ruth expected this, an onslaught of questions but Harry's voice was harsher than usual. She held the phone a bit further from her ear, but her grip on it didn't falter. Harry could hear here take shallow breathes before her next answer.

'There's no bomb. It was a, uh, false trail. I was the, I am the, I'm the target Harry, Malorie,' she could hear him shouting at Tariq to get a trace on her phone, she could hear his footsteps pacing and she held on to every sound. 'Harry!' She tried to get his attention. 'Malorie's dead. I killed her, I-I killed Malorie. There's no threat. It's over.'

There was a silence. Tariq was shouting about phone lines and coding. But Harry was listening to her breathing and she was trying not to stop.

'Why can't Tariq get a trace? Where are you?'

'Look, um, Harry, there's not much time.' Her eyes went to the timer chained to her leg, only four minutes. 'I wanted to' she closed her eyes tight and tried to get the words out , she breathed in hard through her teeth 'to say… to talk to you Harry, I wanted to talk to you.'

There was something terribly wrong. He let his training take over, he but away the part of him she wanted most in that moment and began to question her further.

'HARRY, for gods sake shut up. Malorie wanted me for what I did to her operation. I'm about an twenty minutes away from any sort of real help and there is bomb with me that the Malorie Fowles designed, I don't have time to be taught how to defuse it, there's no one else around – no one will get hurt, I have no time for escape routes or ideas.'

He didn't hear anything but the word bomb. 'Ruth, I can…' Tariq was shouting suggestions.

She took the phone away from her ear, she didn't want false hope or promises now. She tried to sound gentle when she spoke again. 'No, Harry. This time you can't. I didn't ring you to be saved , I didn't ring you as an MI5 officer. Harry, I'm ringing you..'

There was a pause and he realised.

'You don't say goodbye.'

'No. No, I wanted someone to talk to.' It was defeat he heard in her voice. He took her off speaker phone and moved away from Tariq who had slumped in his chair. He took the phone to his officer and sat facing the wall.

'How long?'

She looked at the timer. 2.56. 'Three minutes.' There was silence.

He sat trying to decide what to tell her, what to say, wasting his precious moments on thinking.

'Ruth, I… it's going to be. I'll make sure,'

'Yes, of course you will. You look after Fidget.' She laughed through her words in the familiar, sad way of her. 'And Harry, don't you dare let Malcolm turn up read a poem. You know I loathe Walt Witma-'

He thought he was going to be sick. He pressed a hand against the wall to steady himself. 'Please, Ruth.'

'Harry... It's alright.' This is all wrong, he thought, I should be comforting her. But this was her greatest comfort; the sound of him missing her. 'I'm alright. I'm not one for big speeches Harry… you know that,' she was looking at the timer now, pressing the phone so close to her. 'What did you say? Not emotionally forthright.' They were laughing. 'But I did need to tell you. I need you to know-' and for the first time her voice was breaking.

'I know Ruth. I know... You don't have to.'

'No. I do.' They stopped. He was waiting to hear the words he's always longed for, but now were so unwelcome. She was battling against fear, not of the ticking clock but her old fear. Her old school girl shame and English inability to express what she held dearest.

'I – I, Harry, Oh god. I've always… Bugger it.' and they were crying now 'Harry. I love you.' She whispered. Even in these last moments she was blushing.

'I didn't hear that.' She laughed, she knew he was lying; he just wanted to hear her say it again, but she didn't care because it was all she wanted to say now, in these moments.

Her voice was stronger now. 'I love you. Harry... I love you.'

They were closer now than they ever had been, her crouched in the darkened unfamiliar room and him now on against the wall of his office; his eyes closed, hers watching the seconds slip away.

'I love you.'

'I've always, I love you.'

'Ever since you were late,'

'I should never have said…'

'I love you'

They were both caught in it now. A relationship which had been built on breath, pauses and things unsaid was filling its last moments with a jumble of words and confessions.

'Harry.' She stopped them. '12 seconds.'

12. He was shaking but she was still.

11. 'Harry, thank you, for staying

10. with me. Thank you for…

9. I'm sorry.'

8. 'No. I love you.

7. I love you Ruth Evershed.'

6. Both hands held the phone to her ear. Her body was tense and small.

5. He didn't know what to say.

4. 'I love you Ruth'

3. His voice would be the last thing she heard. She was happy.

2. 'I love you' she breathed. She dropped the phone.

1.


	2. Chapter 2

He didn't hear an explosion. He didn't hear an explosion. He was sure. He didn't. It wasn't wishful thinking. He hadn't heard one. The phone was pressing deep into his skin.

'RUTH.' He was standing now. 'RUTH.'

She knew she wasn't dead. Her eyes were tight shut. There was no moment of thinking this was what happened after, no thoughts of heaven. She could feel her blood raging through her as her heat beat frantically. She could hear the distant sound of Harry's screaming but she couldn't move. She retched. After some seconds she opened her eyes. The timer was on zero.

Lucas was in the doorway trying to get Harry to explain but Harry wouldn't stop shouting.

She didn't know what she could say. She picked up the phone, her movements slow, still wary. She listened to his cries for a few moments more until she could bare to speak. 'H-Harry?'

'Ruth? What-'

'It didn't go off.'

'Where are you? I want answers this time.' His rage was obvious in his voice.

'I'm – I'm, oh god. I'm at Malorie's house but she has a basement with some sort of pass word or code, there was a keypad or something. Some kind of encryption or something. And the doors. They're security. Security doors with a password… I didn't see it. Harry, the bo- it – it still might-'

'Not before I get there, it bloody won't. I will be there soon. I'm going to go now.' He put the phone down. He didn't give her time to protest. He needed to drive quickly, if her voice was in his ear he would not be concentrating. 'Lucas, get a car, bring Tariq. Follow me.' Harry took his own car, he couldn't talk or explain right now. There was no relief in his body, he would not allow any hope until he had seen her, touched her.

Ruth was gripping the phone, Harry had left her alone. She lay down on the floor slowly. She was trying to think, trying to breathe, trying to process what had happened. Realising she was she still there. She began to cry hard, the phone against her chest. Fear was engulfing her. For the next twenty minutes she lay, crying harder than she had ever allowed herself; unsure of what she was scared of the most.

'I'm here.' It was quite and muffled by the heavy door. It woke Ruth from her abandon and she tried to breath back to normality.

Lucas was trying to force the door as Tariq went about decoding the password. Harry just stood waiting. It was seven minutes before Tariq cracked the code, he was about to open the door when Lucas put a hand firmly on his shoulder and lead both of them back upstairs. 'When you have her, I'll check out the device.'

Harry barely heard him.

The door opened.

He was stood there, flustered, sweating with a bag in one hand, looking angrier than she'd ever seen him.

She sat there, exhausted, shaking with a time around her ankle, looking more broken than he'd ever seen her.

They didn't speak. Harry strode over and using pliers from his bag pulled the chains off. The whole time his eyes were locked in hers but she wouldn't return his gaze.

She shakily tried to stand. He saw then, that the phone was still gripped in her small hands. She felt his large hands close around hers, gentler than expected. He took the phone away and softly pulled her up.

They stood face to face, her eyes on the ground, inches away from each other. Despite her best efforts she was still crying. He looked calm, steady and yet tense. As a sob overcame, he stepped forward and raised his hand to her cheek.

When his fingers made contact, a breath of air escaped him and he muttered a tiny 'Thank god'. Ruth's eyes found Harry's through her tears, she opened her mouth to speak but his hand was on the small of her back, half guiding half carrying her out of the room and up the stairs away from the danger.

He sat her in the passenger seat and began to drive. Neither of them seemed able to speak. The drive was long.

She tried to analyse his silence and his anger. Was he angry at her for making him believe she was seconds from… Or was he angry at himself for saying words he didn't mean? Because he couldn't have meant them; after her refusal, after everything. In those minutes she had allowed herself to believe it for the sake of her happiness but now, sat in the car with his silence, she was sure it couldn't be true.

He had expected some relief in her face when he found her in that room; some happiness. But all he had seen was fear. He didn't understand.

They stopped outside her house and for a minute neither of them spoke. She couldn't stand it any longer. 'Harry… I need to be, I, ur, I want to be alone.' She was never normally so still.

'No.' He got out of the car, opened her door. She didn't have her bag or keys. She stood in silence, scared and mortified as he picked the lock. They were inside. Harry moved into the living room whilst she stood at the door.

She tried again, trying to sound stronger. 'I really just want to be alone. I- I just…' The look in his face backed her down to silence.

'Look at me.' It was his Grid voice, and her innate response made her eyes respond despite her unwillingness.

'Harry, please. I want to be alone'

'NO, YOU DON'T. You're embarrassed Ruth, you're embarrassed and ashamed and you're scared, terrified of this, like you always are. I am not a scared man Ruth. You know that. But tonight I was terrified. You almost… FOR ONCE, this is not about your fear.' he was pacing and shouting. He knew his violent rage wasn't what she needed and he waited a moment before continuing more quietly but with as much power in his deep voice.

'You almost left me alone Ruth. I can't be alone right now. So I will be in this house with you and you will not run away from me.' He seemed to have got his last bit of fight and tension out and collapsed onto the sofa, his face in his hands.

She had been leant against the wall, her face hidden under her furrowed brow, now, she moved tentatively toward him and sits next to him, closer than she would dared before but not close enough.

She stroked his arm, brief and fleetingly. He let out a heavy breath and let down his arms. They held each other's gaze trying to take everything in. But again she broke away first and stood in the middle of the room, small and delicate.

'I'm, um, I'm really… sorry, truly sorry Ha- sorry, for putting you through that. I shouldn't have called… you… which ever way things turned out. I shouldn't have put you through that. It was, selfish, selfish of me. That's why I'm… I'm ashamed because it was so selfish of me to say what I said. '

Everything seemed frozen between them. He stood up trying to make sense of her words, and everything seemed to be falling from him, until she continued.

She was summoning all her courage again. It had been hard enough before on a phone but to be here, with him stood in front of her… She thought of all the times she'd let fear overcome her; but it wouldn't now.

'But, I did mean it... I meant it. What I said. Everything I said'

'What did you say Ruth?' She looked confused. 'No, on the phone, what did you say to me?' She turned away, blushing and shattered, he kept pushing her. 'Harr-' 'What did you say?'

'I said I loved you' she bit back through her tiredness, 'I, I love you.' He was a breath away from her now, and for once she didn't turn away. She mustered the strength and moving in, she brushed her lips against his lightly, her hand on his cheek.

Their kiss deepened as they clung to each other. After the silence and stillness they seemed hungry to feel the other's body, to know they were both still there, to feel it for themselves. Harry leaned away from her finally, a sad smile on his face.

'You're tired Ruth. After everyth- after today. You need sleep. I should,'

'Please… don't… Can't you…' She didn't want to have to find the words.

'Of course. Of course I'll stay but we should just…'

'No, yes. We should… Just.' But her lips were against his again as she tried to loose herself in him. Again he stepped away, he took her hand and lead her upstairs. He realised he didn't know which room he was going into and turned defeated to her. She smiled. She pushed the door to her room open.

It was as he would have imagined; a chaos of books and throw pillows. Under any other circumstances the mess would have caused her cheeks to flush but she didn't care then. She pulled him to the bed. All she wanted was to be enveloped by him, to be sure he was there, there with her. He wanted to feel her breath, touch her skin, smell her, he wanted evidence of her continued existence.

They removed their shoes. He took off his jacket and then with gentle hands slid her cardigan from her. Close to him, she undid his tie and unbuttoned his shirt. His hand stopped her from going further.

'I love you' he whispered. He pulled the duvet around them, and pulled his arms around her. He let his fingers entangle themselves in her soft hair.

She wasn't afraid or embarrassed. She was safe. She was alive. She was with him.

'I love you Harry.'

And then they slept.


End file.
